Tag Archives: Donuts

Suzanne’s Hart’s normal day at Donut Hearts in April Springs is shattered by a “dark stranger in a severe suit.” Inspector Terry Hanlan hasn’t come to the shop to catch a last-minute donut, but instead to inform Suzanne that her boyfriend, Jake Bishop, has been shot in the line of duty. Suzanne rushes out with hardly a thought at all to the shop.

Jake was shot tracking down a killer in Hickory. Jake escaped with his life; the same cannot be said of the killer. Jake’s wound will require him to take a lot of rest and wear his arm in a sling. So, when he’s released he will be going to stay with Suzanne at the cottage while he recuperates. This will be interesting; Suzanne, her mother, and Jake all in the same house.

But, upon arriving at the hospital, Dorothea, Suzanne’s mother, informs Suzanne that she’s bought a house in town and will be moving there so Jake can have her downstairs bedroom. Even more surprising is the fact that Dorothea has gotten engaged to Chief Martin and plans to stay in the other house permanently. After adjusting to this announcement, Suzanne realizes that this is a good thing for her mom and also for her. She hasn’t ever lived on her own and will get the chance to do so after Jake gets better.

However, Jake’s road to recovery and Suzanne’s time off from Donut Hearts won’t be as tranquil as she hoped. Apparently the killer Jake took down had a partner, Rusk, who is out for revenge. Rusk might be after Jake, but Suzanne is in danger as well. Heather Masterson, who was in prison for poisoning her aunt and coming after Suzanne, is on the loose and may very well be on the way to finish what she began.

With two killers who want the couple dead, how will Jake and Suzanne fare? This thirteenth book in the Donut Shop Mystery series is filled with action and surprises that will keep readers hooked until the very end.

Oh those high school years–our feelings were so strong, and we were so foolish! Suzanne Hart is not too worried about her upcoming high school reunion. Since she’s moved back to her hometown of April Springs, she sees many of her former classmates on a regular basis, and it’s old news to them that she’s divorced from her high school boyfriend, Max. But some of her classmates have embarrassments from high school that are less well known–minor crimes, unwise photo sessions, unfortunate hookups, unrequited loves–mistakes that they hope will stay in the past.

The last thing that any of the revelers at the April Spring High School reunion wants is to be confronted with indiscretions from their teenage years, but Zane Dunbar loves to stir things up. Zane, a bully in high school, appears to be drinking his way through the reunion, insulting and threatening anyone who crosses his path, including his wife. When Zane is murdered the next day, there are plenty of suspects–including Suzanne’s good friend, Grace. To clear Grace’s name, Suzanne drops everything to investigate Dunbar’s death. (She even takes a day off from her donut shop!)

This is the twelfth novel in the Donut Mysteries series. Like the earlier books in the series, it includes recipes for some tasty morning treats

Suzanne Hart didn’t see this one coming. Yes, Suzanne knows that sweet, goofy Emily Hargraves has been dating her ex-husband, Max. Suzanne even helped the romance along, but Suzanne is unprepared when Emily asks her to be the maid of honor in her wedding–which will take place in just a few days. Suzanne wants to say no, especially after she learns that Max’s best friend, who was the best man at her wedding to Max–and who made a scene at the reception–will be Max’s best man yet again. No, she just can’t do it! But Emily is so sweet and she assures Suzanne that Max is on board with this too. Suzanne finally agrees.

This wedding sets Suzanne to brooding. She has been dating Jake longer than Emily and Max have been a couple, yet Jake has not shown any interest in a nuptial event. If anything, he seems to be pulling away. Suzanne is not aching for another marriage–in fact she kind of likes living with her mother–but she wants Jake to stay in her life. She’ll have to have a serious talk with him when he comes back to town for Emily and Max’s wedding.

But suddenly that wedding is in doubt. Jude Williams, a not terribly nice ex-boyfriend of Emily’s, has been murdered. Emily met with him the night he was killed, and Max’s best man shows evidence of having been in a fight. Did someone in the wedding party murder Jude? Once Suzanne begins to investigate she finds a lot of people with a grudge against Jude–the aunt who raised him, the father of one of his previous girlfriends, a married woman with whom he had an affair, her husband. With so many suspects, Suzanne turns to her friend Grace and their old friend, George Martin (now the mayor of April Springs) for assistance, and readers follow this threesome as they consider motives, check alibis, and narrow their list of suspects.

This is the eleventh novel in the Donut Shop Mysteries series. Like the earlier books in the series, it includes tasty recipes for donuts and other breakfast fare.

Thanks to the summer heat, Suzanne Hart’s donut sales are lagging. Turns out nobody in April Springs craves a freshly fried donut and a piping hot cup of coffee with sky-rocketing temperatures and soupy humidity that keep them just as shiny as Suzanne’s glazed donuts. So her shop, Donut Hearts, has been quiet, verging on deserted. Suzanne doesn’t mind the lack of foot traffic. She is glad to have her college-aged assistant Emma out of classes and in the shop and she maintains high spirits despite the disappointing turn in business. Unfortunately, her most recent customer delivers a nasty little treat. The mystery man alleges to have proof that Suzanne’s father was a cold-blooded killer. After a bit of initial contempt, Suzanne arranges to meet the mystery man beneath the town clock at one in the morning to see his supposed evidence and decide if his half-baked claim is truer than she would like to believe. If it is true, then it might just cost Suzanne more than she can afford.

Unfortunately, when Suzanne meets the mystery man under the clock at the designated time, she finds him – very dead. Minutes after Suzanne arrives on the scene and stumbles upon the unlucky corpse, the cops show up. At first things don’t look good for Suzanne, but then they look even worse for her mother who was suspiciously absent prior to the murder. Yet again, Suzanne and her closest friend, Grace Gauge, start examining the case. Suzanne is determined to find out who murdered the mystery man and if, in turn, his allegations about her father were accurate. As Suzanne and Grace sniff out all the possible leads, they discover that Suzanne was not the only person the mystery man tried to blackmail.

Meanwhile, Suzanne’s philandering ex-husband, Max, begs for her help. Max claims he is a changed man. The changes, he insists, are all due to his love for Emily Hargraves, the owner of Two Cows and a Moose, the local newsstand. Emily is a peculiar character with a whimsical penchant for dressing up her stuffed animals (two cows and a moose, of course) in costumes. Max has resolved to abandon his slick charm if can get a chance with Emily. He waxes poetic about his newfound love and sincerity. But since his odds seem weak, he is hoping for reinforcement. More specifically, Suzanne. Unwittingly, Suzanne is pulled into playing matchmaker for the very odd pairing. She has no qualms about lending Max a hand, but she is surprised that another woman could truly reform her chronically charming ex-husband.

This is the tenth installment in Jessica Beck’s Donut Shop Mystery series. If you’re new to the series, jump back to this blog post that covers the first book, Glazed Murder. Beck wields self-reflective humor by referencing the cozy mystery sub-genre on a few occasions throughout the novel. In one particularly navel-gazing instance, Suzanne quips that her mother had “even read a series based on a donut-shop, of all things.”

Beck offers four enticing donut recipes: two traditional recipes from scratch and two recipes relying on some prepackaged ingredients, which should satisfy readers of all cooking levels. She integrates the recipes within the text of the story. If you’re based in the Triangle area and don’t feel in the mood to slave over a deep fryer, then you could always enjoy this book over some Monuts or Rise donuts and coffee!

James Settle was a newcomer to April Springs but with his easy going style he fit right in. He was a blacksmith and many people, including Suzanne Hart, were delighted to have the lovely things that he made. Everyone in town knew that Suzanne and James were friends, but that doesn’t prevent Gaby Williams from fingering Suzanne as the murderer when James is stabbed in the city park across from Suzanne’s donut shop. Yes, Suzanne and James did have a public argument the morning that he died, but a little bit of smoke wafting into the donut shop wouldn’t have spoiled their friendship.

Suzanne has an alibi for the time of the murder, but she knows that she will be under a cloud of suspicion until the murderer is found. As in similar situations in the past, Suzanne turns to her friend Grace to help with the sleuthing. The friends discover that James was estranged from the other members of his very wealthy family, so greed could been the motive for his murder. But we all know that the other common motive for murder is that nasty mix of love/jealousy/revenge. Which is it in this case? As Suzanne and Grace add to and subtract from their list of suspects, it is fun to see how their minds work and how they navigate Suzanne’s delicate relationship with April Springs Police Chief Martin who is still courting Suzanne’s mother.

Readers will also enjoy the scene in which Suzanne’s book group discusses The Killer’s Last Bite, a book in a long running series of mysteries. The women ask some of the same questions that readers might ask about this series. Can we assume that the answers are the author’s?

Suzanne Hart has never much liked Peter Morgan, the boyfriend of her good friend Grace. She can’t quite put her finger on what it is about Peter that makes her so uneasy–is it that he reminds Suzanne of her charming, philandering ex-husband Max? When Grace shows up at Suzanne’s house in tears one night, Suzanne learns that her instincts about Peter were right. Peter had more than a little something on the side; his phone (which Grace found in a sofa cushion) showed he was dallying with a handful of women. Busy man.

But in short order, Peter is a dead man. The night of the breakup with Grace, Peter drowned his sorrows at the Box Car Grill. After Trish threw him out of the grill, Peter took revenge on Grace by vandalizing Suzanne’s donut shop; then someone battered Peter to death. Initially Suzanne and Grace are suspects, but Chief Martin knows them well enough to rule them out–and to warn them not to investigate the crime on their own. But of course they do. They find that Peter played fast and loose with the truth and with other people’s money. Their suspect list includes Peter’s brother, his business partner, his landlady, and several women in April Springs and a nearby town. Even Suzanne’s new assistant, Nan Winter, seems to have had some kind of relationship with Peter.

Many of the characters in earlier books such as George, Emma, and Jake, make just token appearances in PowderedPeril which is more of a straight-up whodunit than some other books in this series. But like all the previous books, this one includes recipes for those tasty donuts.

Matters of the heart are front-and-center in this latest addition to the Donut Shop Mystery series. Suzanne’s mother, Dorothy, is so outraged by Mayor Cam Hamilton’s latest sleazy business venture that she decides on the spur of the moment to run against him in the upcoming election. Dorothy doesn’t feel the need to consult with anyone about this, not even April Springs’ sheriff, Phillip Martin. As readers of the series know, Sheriff Martin has carried a torch for Dorothy for decades and since his divorce he has been courting her. Suzanne has come to peace with that even though she and Sheriff Martin have had run-ins over Suzanne’s habit of sticking her nose into police business. Someone who can’t accept the sheriff’s budding romance is his ex-wife, Evelyn. When she hears that Dorothy is going to run for mayor, Evelyn decides that she will enter the race too.

April Springs is abuzz at the thought of a three-way race, but that gleeful excitement is short-lived because soon after Dorothy and Evelyn submit their filing papers, Mayor Hamilton is found bludgeoned to death–in the building that was to be Dorothy’s campaign headquarters. Suddenly, Suzanne’s mother is Suspect #1. Chief Martin quickly realizes that his romantic entanglement with Dorothy make it inappropriate for him to investigate the case. The state sends in an outsider (sort of)–state police investigator Jake Bishop. Jake is Suzanne’s boyfriend, but he is all-business once he takes over the case. Suzanne promises to stay away from Jake while he leads the investigation and not to poke around in case herself. Chief Martin also agrees not to freelance on the case. But Mayor Hamilton double crossed, intimidated, and exploited a lot of people and when Suzanne and the chief hear their stories, they soon forget their promises to Jake.

Was Hamilton killed for love, or money? And who will be the next mayor of April Springs? This seventh book in the Donut Shop Mystery series saves its best surprise for the end.

Simon Henson has left an unpaid, custom order of his favorite crullers (extra icing) on Suzanne Hart’s hands for the last time. When a stranger comes in at the end of the day and asks for whatever donuts she has left, the proprietor of Donut Hearts is more than happy to sell him the dripping confections. She is less than happy, however, when the gentleman walks next door and starts throwing the donuts at her friend Gabby’s thrift shop.

Desmond Ray claims that Gabby Williams stole a priceless diamond brooch and $10,000 in cash mistakenly left in the pocket of a coat that formerly belonged to his elderly Aunt Jean. When Gabby denies the accusation and Suzanne reclaims her crullers, Desmond threatens to settle with them both. He makes good on his threat, in a way–the next day, he is found, murdered, directly between Suzanne’s and Gabby’s shops. What could be worse for a small business owner? Gabby is the prime suspect for both theft and murder, but swears she’s been wrongly accused on both counts. With her state police investigator boyfriend out of town, what else can Suzanne do but find the real killer and prove her friend is innocent?

All the familiar faces, including Suzanne’s friends Grace and George, her assistant Emma, and her lovely mother, are back in this sixth book in Beck’s cozy mystery series. The author handles difficult topics such as adultery and abuse of the elderly with a light hand, spending equal time on the crime solving and our heroine’s relationships. Readers will be interested to know that there could even be wedding bells for someone!

With writing that compares the rustling of a woman’s gown to the sounds of a cockroach rooting in a sugar-bowl, it’s safe to say that Police Chief Hayden Konig will never join the greats of American literature. Still, he insists on trying, even purchasing an old typewriter that once belonged to Raymond Chandler. Mr. Chandler, and his pipe, even show up on occasion to compliment Hayden’s efforts. Poor prose and ghostly sightings notwithstanding, Konig is an excellent police chief, and a talented organist at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in the small, sleepy mountain town of St. Germaine, North Carolina.

Hayden has just settled in from his last crime-solving adventure, which included the theft of a valuable diamond, a dead chorister, and multiple trips to England. You’d think that life would resume its leisurely pace, but this is just when St. Germaine chooses to get…interesting. First, there’s the body that parishoners discover hidden in the altar at St. Barnabas. Next, the local bakery produces a miraculous cinnamon bun in the shape of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which is soon stolen. Poor Hayden loses a bet with his beautiful girlfriend Meg, and is made to enroll in a program designed to help him discover his religious masculinity, known simply as the Iron Mike Men’s Retreat. As if this weren’t enough, an itinerant preacher blows into town with his large revival tent and a feathered assistant known as Binny Hen the Scripture Chicken, who helps him select passages from the Bible.

Reeling from the amount of insanity a small town can apparently inflict in such a short time, Chief Konig somehow also finds time to be troubled by the arrival of a charming attorney called Robert Brannon, who immediately worms his way into everyone’s heart, and the very center of church politics. Hayden is also perplexed by the crimes that have sprung up throughout the community–very specific crimes that seem to follow a popular hymn depicting the trials of the saints. Will Konig solve all, or any of these mysteries? More importantly, will he have time to pay attention to what, or who, really matters? And will she say yes?

What are the chances that two people would go missing on the same day in little April Springs, North Carolina? When Emily Hargraves disappears from her newsstand, series heroine Suzanne Hart fears for the safety of the lovely, naive young woman. Suzanne’s fear proves unwarranted–pretty much. Emily left her shop with no notice for a quick tryst with Suzanne’s randy, charming ex-husband, Max. Suzanne regrets not warning Emily about Max, but she trusts that in the end Emily will see him for what he is.

But there is nothing close to a happy ending for the other missing person, Tim Leander. Suzanne and her friend Grace find Tim’s body hanging from an historic tree in the town park. Who could have wanted to kill the popular local handyman, and who had the strength to hoist his body up into the Patriot’s Tree? In part because she found the body, and in part because this kind of snooping is getting to be a habit, Suzanne begins to look into Tim’s life. What she finds shocks her–it seems that Max is not the only playboy in April Springs. Suddenly, Suzanne has lots of suspects. Readers can follow her as she questions Tim’s buddies and lady friends and checks out their alibis with help from Grace, their friend George, and Suzanne’s beau, Jake. Police Chief Martin is officially on the case, but he has to walk a fine line with Suzanne now that he is dating her mother. As with earlier novels in this series, the development of Suzanne’s relationship with Jake, and her mother’s with Chief Martin, add to the charm of the book.